The Basics: You know too much; now you must be killed. That's the dilemma facing retired CIA agents Willis, Freeman, Malkovich and Mirren, all of whom are impediments to government bad guys doing even more bad guy stuff. So they have to take it on the lam, break into secret places, unravel the truth about the corruption and the cover-ups and the blahblahmurderstuffblah and kill a bunch of people who are all trying to kill them first. Along for the ride is Mary-Louise Parker, being wacky.

What's The Deal: Sometimes you don't want a spy movie to be full of head-scratching complication. Sometimes you just want to see a lot of chasing and lot of artillery going blammo and at least a few witty people delivering dialogue charismatically between the blammo parts. And that's what you get here. Sorta. It could use more blammo. And more witty. And more everything else. But it requires nothing from you and, in turn, gives back a reasonable amount of action-tainment, so you still come out ahead in the bargain.

And Then Queen Elizabeth II Straps On A Huge Machine Gun And Sends Their Souls To Hell:
You've seen Bruce Willis be this guy-plus-pistol before. And you've seen John Malkovich get testy and annoyed. And you've seen Morgan Freeman play the easygoing grandpa. And, technically, you've seen Helen Mirren take control like this, too. You've just never seen her do it in an evening gown as sexy as something she'd wear to the Oscars while skillfully operating a giant, tripod-mounted automatic weapon, dealing death to anonymous gunmen. The movie knows this and seems to give her a lot more love than the other characters. And that's fine because, honestly, isn't that what you really came to see?

Demographic-Related Conundrum: It's a comic book adaptation starring actors who are mostly over the age of 50. And it's paced like a movie for older audiences, too. But it's also got a lot of noisy murder and a marketing campaign seemingly aimed at a younger crowd, so it kind of feels like they're trying to sell Grumpy Old Men With Guns to tweens. Will they be bored or will Dame HM walk out of this with a whole new fan base? Whatever happens, I know my 68-year-old mother will want to see it just for the pleasure of watching a woman near her own age murdering a whole bunch of dudes.

See Also: The recent Bruce Willis Between Two Ferns interview conducted by Zach Galifianakis is so uncomfortably funny it should be turned into its own feature.

Comments (4)

Wait...you gave Jackass 4 1/2 and this movie 3? Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave; were you just beat as a child? This movie never took its self seriously and was great fun. You were way off on this!

The Movie Maniac - 10-26-2010 4:58 PM

I absolutely agree with the rating, don't know what these two are talking about. i felt like most of the jokes were directed towards old people's liking too. And I love the between two ferns reference.

Robert - 10-31-2010 3:15 AM

Seriously people, be more adult. Dave is giving his OPINION on the movie. Get it? His OPINION. That's what makes him a good critic in my book. He doesn't tell you what you wanna hear. Just relax.

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